My dilemma

Or, how do I clear up some of the WIPs before starting something new?

I am in the throes of extreme startitis. Or maybe it's just excessive lack of inspiration to finish my current projects. Of which there are many. There's my woefully neglected Ravelympics project from last summer. There's a winter vest that is waiting for some serious extension/grafting work that I'm ignoring. There's the never ending SYB. I've got an Aleita Vest fail in need of remedying before the fall so I can actually use it. And Boo's Haiku - the poor kid has watched her sister get handknits all summer with no payback. Where's the justice in that?

And yet I don't want to work on any of these. I've got a Cookie A bug, and Carroll is waiting for me to get going on Glynis in our knitalong. My recent handspun is crying out to be knit into a shawl for someone who could really use a warm hug now. And I spent one long evening last week not watching "Dollhouse" and fiddling with Ironman's colored pencils, some graph paper, and a huge pile of Palette in an attempt to come up with a good color combo for this. I'm doomed!

I think the only thing I can do is require that I finish something old before I start something new. I desperately want to knit on Glynis and Aestlight while we're back in the states next week, so I guess that means to finish two items. First up Haiku, and then...I guess the Estes vest is next easiest. It's almost done, but the thought of grafting together an entire vest's worth of cables is giving me heartburn.

Do you think it will be enough if the knitting is done? They don't have to be totally finished, do they?

Damn...

FF: Thrive

One of the wonderful things about Ravelry is the ability to see what other people do with the same materials you have, and draw inspiration from that. The Hello Yarn Fiber Club - Finished Yarns thread made me realize that this fiber (which I somehow neglected to ever photograph - woops!) needed to be a two ply. And soon!

I started spinning the week before we left for France, and managed to fill up one bobbin and get through half of the second before we had to leave. Finished up the last of it the two days after we got back and immediately plied.

Despite what it looks like in that picture, the bobbins did not end up matching all that well when I was done. Plying took a couple of nights, and it was done.

I split the 4 oz in half and spun/plied at 12:1, double drafting from the fold. No attempt was made to match up the colors but they ended up melding really nicely.

For whatever reason I was bound and determined to get the entire 4+ oz on to one bobbin. And I had dramatic evidence of the difference between woolen and worsted spinning styles.

Worsted:

Woolen:

That's approximately the same amount of fiber (~4 oz), one spun worsted and navajo plied, one spun semi-woolen and 2-plied. I'm amazed my wheel didn't give me the finger and go on strike.

Final stats: 4.3 ox/121 gr, 500 yds, 14-18 wpi. Somewhat overplied (or underspun - I had trouble with singles drifting apart) in spots but not too bad. Finished with a hot/cold fulling wash.

And almost enough for a large Aestlight. The problem with that however will be addressed next week (otherwise known as bribing myself to finish some UFOs before I cast on anything new!).

July's events

So the month of July was a very very busy one around here. We got back from one vacation, got ready for another, and in between I did a bit of spinning, knitting and pattern releasing. Here's the update.

Spinning:
Air, merino/tencel

Knitting:
Maillot Jaune socks
Flip (not actually knit, but finally photographed and blogged about)
2 hr handspun hat
Ethereal (this has to be my fastest ever turnaround from fiber to yarn to FO)

Other:
Four Tour de France sock patterns released as test versions. Those free versions have now been deactivated, and I'm hoping to have the for sale versions up in the next week or so.
Inaugural UK dyeing of some silk yarn in my new £10 crock pot (not blogged yet)

We're staring down the barrel of yet another trip - back to the States for a family wedding - so posting may be thin for the next little while. Rest assured, things are happening, even if this little corner of the internets is quiet for a bit.

What I knit on my summer vacation

One and a half Pomatomi. Apparently France agrees with fish scales...

FO: Ethereal Rivulet

When I posted the picture of this yarn on the Hello Yarn group Fiber Club thread a couple of weeks ago, and mentioned what I planned to knit, one of the responses used the word ethereal to described the predicted results.

She was right.

Pattern: Rivulet by Heather Asbeck
Yarn: my handspun, detailed here, approximately 400 yds/4 oz.
Needles: US size 2/2.75 mm straights
Gauge: hunh? It's lace, the one time where gauge doesn't matter (much).
Comments/mods: a lovely pattern, well written and easy to follow, that came out so well with this yarn that I think I will wear it for the rest of my days. It's a lovely soft, drapey yarn that feels absolutely yummy knitted up.

The color progression worked out better then I could have hoped, from purple to blues to teal to grey to green. I was expecting the green to be more overwhelming, since it seemed like I had way more green fiber then the other colors, but I don't think it looks too unbalanced.

There were some spots in the yarn where some stray colors got mixed in, making odd stripes every so often.

This bothered me while I was knitting, but isn't noticeable in the finished project. Win-win all around.